Brent Harvey would likely have escaped punishment for his bump on Joel Selwood had the Geelong skipper not bled after it, the match review panel has confirmed.
"It's less likely, but it doesn't rule it out categorically," panel member Joel Bowden told the AFL website.
Harvey will front the tribunal on Tuesday evening challenging the panel's verdict that he was guilty of rough conduct against Selwood, from the unintended head clash that cut Selwood above his eyebrow. Had the North Melbourne veteran not been encumbered by a 10 per cent loading and 41.5 carry-over points, from a suspension a month ago, he would have been able to escape with a reprimand with a guilty plea.
"It didn't seem to be a really huge hit, but subsequently we see Selwood wipe his brow and have to leave the ground for treatment – he was treated for a cut above the eye – therefore we graded this a low (impact), high (contact) negligent bump," Bowden said.
"He bumps him, there's a head contact, and under the new rough-conduct high bump section in our guidelines this year we were compelled to put this up."
Harvey is the third player to be charged under the rule that players who chose to bump are liable for damage caused by unintended head clashes, with Fremantle's Nat Fyfe and Geelong's Taylor Hunt both charged in round two. It was brought in primarily in response to North Melbourne's Lindsay Thomas escaping penalty at the start of 2013 for a hefty off-the-ball bump on Collingwood's Ben Reid, because the damage to Reid was caused by the head clash.
Asked about the panel's rationale for judging the impact from Harvey wasabove the threshold needed to sustain a charge, Bowden replied: "Because of the cut above the brow, and because of Selwood having to go off the ground, we deem that to be [worthy of being charged with] a low level of force."
Selwood, who agreed to a request from the Kangaroos to give evidence at the hearing, described the collision with Harvey as "very minor". The rugged midfielder also agreed it was possible he was more susceptible to head wounds than most players. "I've copped a lot bigger hits," Selwood told Footy Classified. "I do bleed. Maybe it's my genetics or something like that. I don't know. I've had a number of cuts throughout my career, I've been taped-up a lot of times."
While Selwood's cut clinched the charge, Bowden said it was possible that the victim of a high bump "can still not have a cut above the eye and have a low level of force (applied by the aggressor)".
Bowden defended the decision to ascribe a low-impact grading to Harvey's bump but not to the "jumper punch" by Geelong's Tom Hawkins to Hawthorn's Ben Stratton a week earlier, on the basis that the Hawks defender did not have to the leave the ground, as Selwood did, and that there was "no impact to Stratton whatsoever".
Bowden said the revised head-clash rules meant the panel was "compelled" to charge Harvey, and dismissed the notion its decision-making should be influenced by the fact the charged player would in turn miss a preliminary final.
"It's never easy and it's never pleasant putting someone out of a game, regardless of what period of the season it is, but unfortunately that's the job that we're entrusted with and that we have to do."
The tribunal will consider Harvey's case on Tuesday evening.The Kangaroos' contention at the tribunal will be that the impact of the collision initiated by Harvey was insufficient to warrant a rough-conduct charge.
An adverse ruling would not cause him to miss an additional match – a grand final, if North managed to shock theSydney at ANZ Stadium on Friday night.
